Consumer Reports names its top hospitals for safety

July 5, 2012

Consumer Reports on Thursday announced its "Top 10 Hospitals" based on a new safety ratings system that assessed safety performance at 1,159 hospitals across 44 states.

For the rankings, Consumer Reports analyzed CMS, state government, and Leapfrog Group data in six categories: readmissions, hospital-acquired infections, CT scan overuse, communication about new medications and discharge, complications, and mortality. The list represents just 18% of U.S. hospitals.

Hospitals were scored on a 100-point scale and more than half received an overall safety score below 50%, according to Consumer Reports. None of the surveyed hospitals received a score higher than 72.

Nearly 500 facilities received the lowest possible score for communication about medications and discharge planning, which Consumer Reports says is "worrisome because drug errors in hospitals are common" and "poor discharge planning can lead to readmissions."

The latest safety rankings provide a "window into our nation's hospitals, exposing worrisome risks that are mostly preventable," says John Santa, director of the Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center. "A consumer who enters a hospital thinking it's a place to get better deserves to know if that is indeed the case."

Consumer Reports' rankings come on the heels of the Leapfrog Group's own hospital safety report, which reviewed more than 2,600 hospitals and assigned letter grades.

How healthy is your state? Hawaiians have the highest well-being in the nation, while West Virginians have the lowest, according to a Gallup-Healthways annual survey that analyzes physical and emotional health.

Is your hospital's patient population increasing your readmissions risk? Kaiser Health News/Washington Post found that hospitals with the most low-income patients are nearly three times as likely to report high congestive heart failure readmission rates as other hospitals.